The Kindness Challenge: Carrying Out Kindness

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Matthew 25:31-46:

After last week’s message on practicing praise, I had a lot of people coming up to me to give me thanks, and so then I had to decide whether it was just everyone working on practicing praise, especially the injunction not to let people assume you are appreciated, but to tell them, or if there were lots of people who decided to practice the kindness challenge on me. But, since one of the things we are working on is assuming the best of intentions for others, rather than the worst, I am going to go with the first answer. Today we conclude in our series on the Kindness Challenge, which is based off a book by the same name by Shaunti Feldhahn, and so a quick recap of the three rules of the kindness challenge. The first rule is to nix the negativity, that is we are not to say anything negative to the person we are doing the kindness challenge for, not to say anything negative about them to someone else. The second rule is practice praise, that is as we start to stop focusing on the negative we instead look for positives and to give one piece of praise or affirmation about someone else every day, and tell someone else what you praised them for. If you missed either of those messages, I would encourage you to go back and listen to them, which then leads us into the final rule, which we cover today, and that is to carry out kindness, or to do a small act of kindness or generosity for the person you are doing the kindness challenge for every day, and to do all three of these steps for 30 days, although you don’t have to stop there.

Additionally, as we are doing the kindness challenge for one person, if that’s what we choose to do, we will also find that we can do these steps for everyone so that we are seeking to bring kindness into all our interactions. But, one thing to keep in mind as we think of ways to be more kind is that except for this third rule, you can do the first two rules for anyone, even if you never come into contact with them. So, you can be more kind to that certain politician you can’t stand, by removing negativity and practicing praise, and remember first is that you don’t have to like someone in order to be kind, and everyone is deserving of kindness even if they are not being kind to others. You can do it for someone who has died, and you need to bring some healing to that relationship, or to someone you have cut out of your life because of something that they did to you. Kindness, and practicing acts of kindness, can be the first steps to bringing about healing and forgiveness, and remembering that forgiveness is not about condoning, enabling or forgetting a hurt, or even saying that it didn’t hurt, but about freeing ourselves from carrying that burden any more so that the perpetrator no longer has control over our lives. Nor is forgiveness about denying that we have the right to be resentful, but for us to say that we are going to put aside that right in order to practice kindness, compassion and forgiveness, with the big caveat that Jesus never said that we only had to forgive people up to a certain point, but that if they crosses our line in the sand, that we didn’t have to forgive. Instead he tells us not to forgive 7 times, but 70x7 times and that unless we learn to forgive then we will not be forgiven. And kindness, acting in kindness can play a significant role in that, because kindness is not just about what we think, but it is about what we say and what we do.

The Kindness Challenge: Practice Praise

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Luke 17:11-19:

There are lots of stories of Jesus healing people in the gospels, of which the healing of the 10 lepers which we heard from Luke this morning seems to be one of them, except, this story is not really about a healing. Yes, a healing does take place, but all we are told about it is that after Jesus tells them to go show themselves to the priest that “as they went, they were made clean.” That is they left Jesus before they were healed of their leprosy, which was a default term used to describe lots of skin diseases, not just the one we typically refer to today as leprosy, or Hansen’s Disease, which still infects some 200,000 people a year around the world, and most of the cases in the US are believed to come from exposure to armadillos. But, that’s just of interest, at least to me, this story is not about the healing, but about the thanksgiving and how it takes place. At the beginning of the story, Jesus is traveling, and these ten men call out in unison to Jesus, to have mercy on them. There is a subtle distinction in the major translations here that I think is significant to point out. In the NRSV, which is what we heard this morning, and the translation I prefer for several reasons, the are simply referred to as ten lepers, but the NIV refers to them as ten men who had leprosy. The difference is subtle, but important, because the NIV simple makes their disease an aspect of something they have, rather than who they are. They have leprosy, rather than they are lepers. It gives them dignity and humanity that is lacking, or can be lacking, when we refer to them by whatever characteristic we choose to say that they are, which I think is important as we think about gratitude and praise and how we see and respond to others.

But Jesus hears their request, which may simply be a request for alms, or money, not a request for healing, as the story is not clear, as it is in other healing stories, that that is what they are asking for. And Jesus listens to them, and sees them, another important point, and offers them healing or cleansing, as leprosy is about ritual impurity, and then they go on their way and then are healed. As one person I read this week said, “a portion of Jesus’ ministry is his willingness to be interrupted by the intrusion of human need.” That is, he sees these people in need of his help and he takes the time to help them, regardless of what is going on, or how busy or exhausted he is, and by implication calls for us to do the same. But how often are we irritated by the intrusions we have in our life, the things that we don’t think are important, or, again, that we might attribute the worst of intentions towards the person who is coming to us for something. But what we see in this story is that just we never know who we may encounter that needs healing, even if they are not seeking it, so too we never know who will be a vehicle for God’s grace to us, as it is here. Because of the ten-people healed, only one returns to thank Jesus, to give him praise. It’s not that the others have their healing go away, they simply go on with their lives. But one returns, and he is a Samaritan at that, one of “those people”, someone not liked by Jews, and he praises God with a loud voice, and then bows down at Jesus’ feet, an act of worship, and thanks him. He sees Jesus’ act of grace towards him and responds with praise and thanksgiving. His life becomes an act of worship towards God.

The Kindness Challenge: Nix the Negative

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Matthew 5:21-24:

In Jewish tradition, every sin is ultimately atoneable, or forgivable in this life, except one, and that is the sin of desecrating or profaning God’s name, which can only be atoned after death. When we think of profaning God’s name, it’s usually something about taking God’s name in vain, or cursing, but according the Rabbi Rav, the core desecration occurs when those who are most closely associated with God act in ways that would be perfectly legitimate for other people, but that are not for those who proclaim faith. That is, when representatives of God appear to act in ways that do not adhere to the highest moral standards, their behavior reflects poorly not just on the faith, but more importantly their behavior reflects poorly on God, and consequently God’s name is desecrated. In the daily baptismal prayer we have talked about, and have available, we pray that everything we do that day would honor God, but what if we thought about that not only honoring God but also not dishonoring God to others, because what we do matters.

As we continue in our series on the kindness challenge, I had a number of people come to me to tell me that the person they were going to do the challenge for, the person they were going to work on practicing kindness towards, were not believers, which means it’s even more important that our actions match what we proclaim to believe, because it’s not just that we are setting a bad example and picture of Christians, and there are plenty of people who do that already, as we see on an all too regular basis, especially in trying to use scripture to justify bad, or even illegal, behavior, but within this understanding we are also desecrating God’s name, just to add a little more pressure for us all.

The Kindness Challenge: Breaking Bread

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Luke 22:14-23:

A little more than two week’s ago, former presidents Bush and Obama made speeches about the current political atmosphere in the country. Obama said “Why are we deliberately trying to misunderstand each other and be cruel to each other and put each other down? That’s not who we are!” while Bush the younger said “We have seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty…. Bullying and prejudice in our public life sets a national tone, provides permission for cruelty and bigotry, and compromises the moral education of children. The only way to pass along civic values is to first live up to them.” Now, this decline in civility has been building up for a long time, and is clearly found in more than just politics. Just turn on the television and we see people screaming at each other on cooking shows. I’ve spent some time in kitchens, and every kitchen I’ve been in that type of behavior would not be tolerated, but it makes for good television. There is a reason why we don’t have a show called the sweetest housewives of Beverly Hills, because that’s not exciting, and people don’t want to watch two political commentators agree with each other. Instead we’d rather watch people be oppositional, except we’ve moved passed just disagreeing to being disagreeable. And as much as we say that we don’t like it and we want it to be better, the truth is our behavior says exactly the opposite because people are watching these shows.